Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Goose Daycare

This seems an inordinately large swarm of goslings (22, at least) for this pair of adults, but Canada geese are known for setting up "creches," where a small number of adults watch over goslings from more than one family. If you click on the images above or below and look more closely, you can see that they are not all the same age. Look for differences in neck and bill length, as well as overall size.


Somehow I missed this next one on the first round, so I've added it now. I think the caption on this one should be "Like Herding Cats!" -- You can just see by the snaky neck on that day-care lady (or day-care gent) that its singular thought is, "Now you pesky kids GET over there where you belong!"


Here (below) is a single family group with younger, yellower kiddos. How quickly they grow up.


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2 comments:

Christopher Tassava said...

Wow. The more I learn about geese, the more I think that they're pretty incredible animals. The lifetime pairing is one thing, but babysitting? My girls will love to learn about this.

Elizabeth said...

What great pictures and what a neat lesson on geese :) Thanks for sharing!